


I think she knows

by onceuponawar



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Critical Role episode 109, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Marisha and Laura know best but if I can't have romance I will have closure, Missing Scene, beaujester, call this the beaujester resolution fic, lavorregard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27569125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponawar/pseuds/onceuponawar
Summary: “Beau.” A laugh burbles from Jester’s throat. “Beauuuu. I know you’re trying to tell me you had a crush on me. I’m trying to tell you I had a crush on you, too.”...or: Beau and Jester's waltz becomes a confessional
Relationships: Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 12
Kudos: 69





	I think she knows

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to be honest and say I never fully watched this scene or this episode, but its potential scratched by writer's itch. Please ignore any timeline mistakes, canon is useless to me in favor of the closure I want for them. Comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Title comes from the Kaki King cover of Justin Timberlake's song "I Think She Knows" (it's beaujester up and down, please listen)

There is a bleak night before her, and then there is Jester. This is how most things start.

Caleb had left her on the dance floor with a sense of finality and bemusement, the way he always seemed to make every conversation as though it was their last. And as always, it sends her on a spiral. Already prone to overthinking, Beau accepts that this is how she’ll end her evening and slips into the shadows of the room. She allows herself to remember the Nein’s early days, ruminate on how they’ve all changed, how she’s changed, her feelings about these friendships she’s formed, her feelings about Caleb, about--

Jester stumbles into her arms. It’s no accident, by the gleam in Caleb’s eye, and she can read his expression like a book:  _ You talked to me, now talk to her _ . She wishes she had a free hand to flip him off, then doesn’t when Jester intertwines their fingers and giggles. 

“Look at this, Beau.”

A small unicorn dangles from her palm--their palms, pressed together. Beau knows immediately where it came from, and can’t help the infectious smile that comes to her face. She grins and nods like a fool, following Jester’s lead. No words have to be spoken between them to know this is a win. 

A pair of dancers bump into them and after a slurred little  _ oops _ leaves Jester’s mouth, she untangles their fingers and puts the figurine safely in her dress pocket. Her hand attracts back to Beau’s and there is stepping on a couple of toes, then they fall into step. Jester’s knowledge of the dance makes up for Beau’s lack thereof, and it seems for a moment like they blend into the quiet rhythm, like Beau can forget the weight she’s carrying. 

Then: Jester leans in conspirationally. “Did you hear what Yasha--”

“You know I really, really liked you,” Beau spits, words colliding into each other as they leave her mouth. She’s sure, at this nonexistent distance, that Jester must feel her pulse racing. Caleb is in her head, laughing, calling her tactless and tenacious.

The look of surprise that crosses Jester’s face almost scares Beau off the conversation entirely. She can play it off, pretend she never said anything, they can even talk about Yasha if she wants. But then Jester recovers and her face flushes and she smiles, teeth catching her lower lip. “I liked you too, Beau.”

Beau’s heart goes heavy. It was even worse this way. She thought, surely the way she said it, hurried with embarrassment, that Jester would understand that she hadn’t really meant  _ like _ , she’d meant in love. She’d meant that she’d spent every night lying awake thinking about those shiny fangs that only appeared in her genuine smiles, the violet freckles across her nose and the diamond dust that glittered on her chest, the playful tail that was tickling the back of Beau’s calf. She’d meant that for months, loving Jester, even in private, had made her heart swell larger than she thought she could bear. Beau loved her so much she thought she’d die from it. There was no way to explain that, but she’d hoped “really, really liked” could have done the job somehow.

This is what Caleb knew, because Veth had surely told him, and this is what she had to explain to him was over. As all-encompassing as it had been, she wasn’t in love with Jester anymore. But he had the miraculous ability to pinpoint other people’s hauntings, and Jester was Beau’s. So he’d done the most Caleb thing he possibly could, and took the matter into his own hands. He’d pushed Jester towards her on a night of vulnerability, Beau had taken the bait, and now she had to deal with the mess she’d created.

“Jes that’s—that’s not really what I meant by like. I don’t mean to fuckin’... make this weird or anything— between us, I mean—but I’m trying to tell you I had like a  _ thing _ for you, y’know? A romantic thing? I don’t mean to get all TMI or whatever—“

“Beau.” A laugh burbles from Jester’s throat. “ _ Beauuuu _ . I know you’re trying to tell me you had a crush on me. I’m trying to tell you I had a crush on you, too.”

Beau stumbles, sending the waltz out of rhythm. She and Jester bump into another couple who glare, half affected, and take a few steps away. After a moment of surprise, Jester seamlessly reorients them to the beat and takes the lead. Focusing on the steps helps Beau clear her head, despite the fact she feels like someone set off a firework in her blood, exploding to her synapses. This she had not prepared for.

After half a minute of silence and box steps and composure, Beau fixes her gaze on Jester. “Are you—are you serious? Because y’know you don’t have to just say that because I did, I get that you and—” it feels wrong, somehow, to say his name, in a moment that feels so private and theirs “—you know have your own thing going. I’m not here to wreck that.”

“No, Beau. I liked  _ you _ .” They spin, and Jester loses some of her composure. “I thought that maybe you were just my best friend, y’know? I loved you so much because that’s just what best friends were like but then…”

Jester furrows her brows, and on impulse Beau tightens her grip: half in reassurance, half to stop herself from smoothing out the wrinkle that forms there with her thumb. “What is it?”

“You were going to sacrifice yourself. To the hag. And the thought of having to say goodbye to you, it  _ hurt _ . It hurt so much and I was so scared of seeing you go I had to come up with another plan to save you.”

“You were a hero.”

“Because that’s what people who love each other do. They save each other.” Jester’s voice wavers, eyes unfocussed over Beau’s shoulder. She sounds almost melancholy. “Just like in the stories.”

Beau tries to follow her gaze, but everyone in the room is spinning and she can’t track who could possibly be the target of her dismay. Maybe no one at all. It’s so rare to watch the Jester she knows slip away into hopelessness. She takes a shot in the dark: “Not everything is a story, though, is it?”

“No,” Jester mumbles, embarrassed by her own emotions. Beau wants to hug her and tell her it’s okay, but can’t figure out how to do so without breaking the rhythm of the dance and making a scene. “It’s not.”

They go in circles for another few moments, in a silence edging on the beat of uncomfortable. What remains unsaid hangs heavy between them, and just when the music shifts and Beau thinks Jester is going to slip right between her fingers to another, better partner, the tiefling speaks. 

“How did you know you liked me?”

Beau breathes a sigh of relief and smiles. This is something she can define. “I think that I always did? As soon as I met you, it was like watching someone stumble out of a fairytale. Twice as pretty as you were naive, a pastry diet and a quest for your father? You were unreal, Jes. Like a fucking princess. But then I realized you’re more than that. You’re… you’re funny, you make me laugh, your plans are fucking ridiculous, but you’re clever, like with the hag. You’re complicated. More than just childish. You’re… god, you were everything.” 

Jester’s eyes glass over with tears, and for a moment Beau can’t tell if that means she’s done well or fucked this whole thing up, but then Jester whispers “That’s really, really sweet, Beau. Thank you.”

“Well you don’t have to fucking—you don’t have to  _ thank  _ me, Jes, it’s just how I felt, and it’s all true.”

“I knoooow, but you’ve always believed in me. Even when we first met other followers of the Traveler. Do you remember that? You said you’d follow me, that you went where I did. Even though you knew I was going to get us in trouble.”

“Well it seemed like fun at the time,” Beau interjects, but Jester rushes ahead. 

“And you just kept following me. You never stopped. That’s how I knew, Beau. That I had a crush on you. Because I thought about that day  _ all the time _ .” Their feet pick up with the swell of the music. People are switching partners, but Jester’s grip is tight and Beau wouldn’t trade this moment for a single goddamn thing. 

“The Traveler told me to tell you so many times. He saw every sketch I ever did, Beau, and there were _so_ many. I loved when you posed for me but I loved the ones I did when you weren’t looking even more, that sad look you’d get when you weren’t pretending for anyone, not even me. Is that creepy? I’m not a _creep_ , Beau, I just liked you a lot _._ I had crushes before but this felt so different because you were you, so cool and powerful and--and a _girl_. It was scary and it made me mad, like when you went off with Reani, but it made me feel like in the books, y’know? It made me happy.”

Beau doesn’t know how to process any of this, that someone could love her in such a capacity. That the love she carries with her can be reciprocated, even if it comes a little too late. She has spent a quarter of her life in libraries and doesn’t have the vocabulary to express it. But Jester knows. She knows, so Beau defers to her defenses. She laughs and says: “You were jealous of  _ Reani? _ ” 

“Well she was basically a badass  _ angel _ so yeah maybe I was but I would never  _ tell  _ her that she’s so nice and sweet, y’know?”

“Jester, Reani is basically  _ you _ , but with a questionable willingness to kill lawbreakers.”

“Oh.”

A huff of a laugh. “Yeah. I spent a long time chasing people who were at least a little like you… That’s kinda embarrassing to say.”

Jester’s lips twist in a smile, and her fangs show, just a little. “I think it’s romantic, Beau. You were  _ in loooove  _ with me.”

“Heh, yeah. Yeah I was.” She says it so easily, as though she hadn’t carried around the weight of those words like a barbell balanced between her aorta for half a year, maybe longer. Beau had lived in fear that if Jester knew, if she  _ knew _ , that they could never be this close again. Fear that Jester would become distant and Beau would lose more than a lover, she’d lose her best friend. 

But now she says it, Jester gripped in her calloused hands, waltzing in a bar, and doesn’t feel fear at all, only release.

“Beau?”

“Yeah?” 

Jester’s face flushes, deep violet and sheepish. “Can I kiss you?”

Beau feels her heart stutter. She doesn’t even pause to see if any of their friends are looking. “Uh, yes. Yes.”

Jester’s mouth is on hers before Beau can even pull their dance to a stop. She tastes like the stale beer she’d downed at the bar beforehand: soft lips and sour twinges of barley. It was sloppy, fangs biting into Beau’s mouth, horns knocking against her forehead, but so warm and longing it made Beau ache--ache for the girls they’d been before Rumblecusp, the girls who’d been so quietly in love with each other it was damn near invisible, who’d never known real devotion or real friendship, who’d dreamt of this moment in shades of impossible and somehow managed to pass each other, like ships in the night. 

As Beau and Jester pull away, strangers continue to dance around them. The night carries on breathing, gentle winds rushing through open windows and picking up their hair. The world still spins. Time had never stopped for them before, and it didn’t now, even at their most vulnerable.

“You don’t still have a crush on me, do you?” Jester whispers. Her lips are swelling, slightly.

“No,” Beau says, honest. “I think I need to learn to stop following and start leading, instead. Take charge of my own fate. Does that make sense? It doesn’t change the fact that you are a pretty-fucking-good kisser, Jes, that was amazing.”

Jester grins wide and Beau grabs her, reimmersing them into the crowd of dancers. “It also doesn’t change that I love you. You’re still my best friend, you know. Whatever happens, I’ll be right there with you, punching shit. But you don’t still…?”

“No, no. I love you, Beau, but I don’t think I know what a real relationship looks like outside of, y’know, smut. And Artie is going to need  _ so much _ support; I don’t really know who I am when I’m not his _ high priestess _ , or whatever.  _ Woof _ , there’s so much happening right now.” Jester’s voice cracks and she swallows hard; ghosts her hand over the pocket where the unicorn figurine resides. “Also, I guess not everything is a story, like you said. Not like Tusk Love, at least, though I never thought we were going to, like, have  _ boat sex _ after I drowned and you revived me or anything crazy like that.”

Beau smirks. “Oh, really?”

“Okay well maybe I thought about it like once or twice but it really was kinda romantic, Beau, and we were on the sea for a really, really long time and I have a very good imagination.”

And Beau can’t help it, she laughs. She thinks,  _ this is why I fell in love with her _ . She thinks,  _ this is why she’s my best friend _ . 

“You know, we could pretend. Just for a little while. That this is a story after all,” Beau says.

Jester’s jaw goes slack. “ _ You want to have boat sex with me?! _ ” She screeches in a whisper. A few heads turn in their direction.

“No! No-- _ god _ \--I just meant we could dance here a little longer, like these other couples, and show them all up with our fantastic dancing skills.”

“Oh! Oh! That’s such a good idea, Beau. I’ll be like the Sapphire Princess and you can be”—her voice dips an octave—“my mysterious knight in shining armor.”

Beau pulls her close, as close as if she were to kiss her again, and whispers: “How about we’re just us? Just Beau and Jester. Just this once.”

Jester sighs heavily and relaxes into Beau’s arms. The exhaustion Beau has felt since she stepped out onto the dance floor finally shows in her tiefling friend; a few of the baubles hanging from her horns slump forward, making soft tinkling sounds as she leans her head on Beau’s shoulder. “That sounds pretty nice, too.”

Beau doesn’t spend a lot of time in the present. The monastery taught her to always be looking both ways: analyzing the past and assessing the future and taking notes and reporting back her findings. Already, she knows that she’ll have to map their path to Eiselcross, decipher deRogna’s true intentions, make sure that the Soul can track them if things go sour. She’ll leave a message and by morning, the Archivists will know many things about tonight. 

But Beau knows the things that she will leave out--like the smell of her best friend’s skin, the taste of her on Beau’s lips, or the warmth of their bodies pressed together in a sea of dancers.

And just because she can, just this once, she places a kiss in Jester’s hair. She imagines for a moment that there is nothing else but this--no mercenaries, no danger, no Nein--nothing but Jester tucked beneath her chin, swaying to the beat of a ballad. A room waiting upstairs and their lives stretched out before them, as wide as the coast.


End file.
